In a new interview that ran in the Guardian over the weekend, designer Vivienne Westwood talked about her early reluctance to pursue a career in fashion:

I don't feel comfortable defending my clothes. For 15 years I hated fashion. It's not very intellectual, and I wanted to read, not make fashion. It was something I was good at; it wasn't all of me."

As much as I like to read, I don't feel comfortable defending the word "intellectual" but I do feel comfortable defending Vivienne Westwood, and even her clothes. The 70-year-old designer has been using her status as a fashion god to work as an activist for the causes closest to her heart.

Westwood has been making her support for the Occupy Movement public, dropping by the tents outside St. Paul's Cathedral in London to talk about the relationship between climate change and the world's economic woes. She's also launched a major environmental initiative, Cool Eath, a charity dedicated to protecting the rainforest. And four years ago, she penned a wacky pro-art manifesto, Active Resistence, a sort-of conversation between fictional characters like Pinnochio, Child Slaveboy, Icharus, and Dryad of the Rainforest.

Another choice Viv quote:

"I will say something that sounds terrible. We're all going into the gas chamber, and what I'm saying is that it's not a bathroom. We're going to be killed. The human race faces mass extinction."